Cautious Bidding Prevails at N.Y. Art Auction

The contemporary art market seems to have lost its steam in New York auction houses. For the second night in a row, total sales fell below expectations Tuesday and about a third of the works offered failed to sell.

After an erratic beginning Monday night at Christie’s, many dealers and collectors had speculated that results would be more bullish Tuesday night at Sotheby’s sale of 87 works, valued at a total of $88 million to $115 million. But 32 of the lots did not sell, and total sales were $55.8 million.

Sotheby’s had predicted that 30 items would bring as much as $1 million each, but only 12 reached that mark and several top-priced lots went begging. Twenty works sold for less than their low estimates.

In a market that has skyrocketed in recent years and commanded up to $20.68 million for a single painting (Willem de Kooning’s “Interchange”), Sotheby’s sale appeared to signify a sharp downturn. Putting a positive spin on the sale, Lucy Mitchell-Innes of Sotheby’s said the contemporary art market remains “very robust” and that disappointing results were simply “a reflection of the fact that the market cannot continue to go up as fast as it has in the last two or three years.”

Overly high reserves, the lowest price that a seller will accept, indicate that “the expectations of some collectors have gotten a little ahead of themselves,” she said.

But the auction was far from a disaster. Records were set for 10 artists, and 11 pieces sold for more than the auction house’s high estimates. The top lot was “Palisade,” an Abstract Expressionist painting by De Kooning that sold for $7.15 million to Chicago dealer Richard Gray. Sotheby’s had valued the work at from $8 million to $10 million.

Francis Bacon’s “Study for Portrait,” valued at $5 million to $7 million, brought $5.5 million from an anonymous European dealer. A Japanese dealer bought an untitled blackboard-style painting by Cy Twombly for $5.5 million, a record for the artist. Another Twombly work brought $3.85 million from an anonymous American collector.

Among the few fireworks in the lackluster auction were sales of works by Ad Reinhardt and Richard Diebenkorn. Reinhardt’s 12-foot-tall black oil, simply titled “Abstract Painting,” brought $2.53 million from a Japanese dealer, more than six times the artist’s record of $396,000.

Spirited competition for Diebenkorn’s “Ocean Park 40” ended when a client bidding by telephone purchased the colorful abstract for $1.76 million, edging the artist’s record up from $1.43 million.

Other artists whose works commanded record prices included Morris Louis, $1 million; Helen Frankenthaler, $715,000; Frank Auerbach, $660,000, and Larry Rivers, $467,500.

Contemporary art sales continue today at Sotheby’s with an auction of lower-priced paintings, sculptures, drawings and watercolors.

Next week, the auction subject changes to Impressionist and modern art, and the stakes are higher. The star attractions are Vincent van Gogh’s “Portrait of Dr. Gachet,” to be offered at Christie’s, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “Au Moulin de la Galette,” at Sotheby’s. The auction houses have predicted that each work will bring up to $50 million.